Pulpetti: short reviews and articles on pulps and paperbacks, adventure, sleaze, hardboiled, noir, you name it. You can write to Juri Nummelin at juri.nummelin@gmail.com.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Some Swedish paperback covers: Whittington and Brewer

Here are two paperback covers for Swedish translations of books by two American paperback masters, Harry Whittington and Gil Brewer.

Gil Brewer's Drömmen om ett mord ("Dream of a Murder"; Kometdeckaren #167, 1967) was originally titled Flight to Darkness (Gold Medal 1952). It's a noir thriller about an artist who sees recurring dreams of killing his own brother. I've read this, but can't remember much about it, except that I liked it quite a bit. The Swedish cover is probably Spanish in origin.

The Harry Whittington one is En skön död ("Beautiful Death"; Kometdeckaren #169, 1967) was originally titled Drawn to Evil (Ace 1952) which I haven't read. I'd like hear comments from those who have. I'm sure Bill Crider has. There's a signature beside the lady, but I can't make it out. I'm not sure whether it's American or European in origin.

I'll post tomorrow more about Kevin Wignall's Kuka on Conrad Hirst? I just wanted to get these out of the way - was cleaning the study a bit.

And yes, both books have a section "Bilaga sex". The Whittington has an original short story by one Kim Saltöö and the Brewer has a section of Josephine Mutzenbacher's "memoirs" of a prostitute. (If reports are right about this, Mutzenbacher was really Felix "Bambi" Salten.)